


Running With The Wolves

by LycanDelta



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, German, Germany, Gothic, Implied abuse, Implied animal abuse, Implied mental illness, Religious Imagery, Werewolf, Werewolves, fuck each other over, gothic horror, lycanthropy, two sisters over the course of a lifetime
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-10
Updated: 2017-05-10
Packaged: 2018-10-30 09:15:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10873740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LycanDelta/pseuds/LycanDelta
Summary: In 1700's Germany, the small village of Greifswald has a wolf problem. A werewolf problem. For the Dolphos family, it's claimed their eldest, Eena. At least they thought. After her death in the nearest asylum for the ill, her family is ready to put her to rest. Until her mother is nearly sure she's still alive. Afraid of her sister being alive, Rúna returns in the evening...only to find her no longer in her casket. Wolves howl in the distance, and her werewolf of a sister is on the loose. Rúna is the only one who really knows her sister, and she's the only one who can hunt her down, and either spare her life, or put her to rest once and for all.Instead of "Chapters", each Chapter is a add on to the original story, though the first one, and possibly all of them could be considered standalone pieces. So, for now the story is complete. Also, there is an alternate "non-canon" version of Running With The Wolves that will also be uploaded.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Instead of "Chapters", each Chapter is a add on to the original story, though the first one, and possibly all of them could be considered standalone pieces. So, for now the story is complete. Also, there is an alternate "non-canon" version of Running With The Wolves that will also be uploaded.

Moonlight bathed the graveyard in eerie light over a midnight funeral. Final goodbyes were being muttered to the once rather lively, mentally ill girl. Her normally dusky-gold skin was nearly pale as the moon that watched over the proceedings. It was sobering, to finally see Eena quiet, and unmoving. A reminder, that even the most headstrong, will eventually be put to rest.  
She wore a light lace gown, pure white. It was all the family could afford. The asylum drained nearly all of the Dolphos family’s savings. Eena’s death, according to them, was painless. She had come down with typhoid fever, and was on the brink of death. They had given her a cocktail of drugs to overdose her, put her out of her misery, and she died that night.  
Her mother, Dagna, knew better. She had seen the wounds on her daughter before she dressed her corpse. Claw markings, bruises, dark circles under her eyes. The claw marks, and dark circles were common for Eena, Her way of proving that she was turning into a wolf. She stayed up at night to howl to her “real family.” She spent the day hunting, traversing the woods until her father, Gerulf locked her up. When he did, she would howl, and claw at her arms.  
“See, see?” she’d say, “I have claws like them Papa! Please, let me be with them!”  
She would never be wed, if she kept acting like such a ferocious beast. People were beginning to worry she was a werewolf. For Eena’s and her younger sister’s safety; and for the peace of mind it would bring the other people of their town, Eena was locked away in the asylum.  
The clouds began to cover the moon as Dagna dragged her only living child behind her. She hid in the curtails of her mother’s dress, vehemently refusing to behold her deceased sister, as though Eena might wake back up and attack her again.  
Dagna had to admit, that Eena still seemed alive in a a peculiar way. The way her right hand clutched the family rosary in one hand, the other clung tight to the family hunting dagger. The sheath of the dagger was covered with worn imprints of running wolves, the handle scratched up from generations of use.  
“She’ll need the rosary to convince Gabriel that she’s still a child of god, and the knife in case he doesn’t believe her.” Gerulf had said.  
Dagna prayed that God would forgive Eena, so that she wouldn’t need the knife, that God would understand that it was only her illness that made her so foul-tempered and aggressive.  
Dagna gently patted Eena’s cheek. It was lukewarm, most likely from all the other people placing their hands on her cheek. A tear rolled down Dagna’s cheek, causing little Rúna to squeeze her mother’s hand. Would Rúna tell her children of Eena? Would she recount the sister that tried to slice her open while she slept, the sister that walked on all fours and ate raw meat like a beast? Would Rúna even remember Eena by the time she was an adult? She was so young…  
For the briefest of moments, the clouds opened just enough to cast a few moonbeams down onto the funeral, onto Eena. The knife in her hand glimmered bronze, and in that moment, Dagna swore that Eena’s hand twitched. She gestured for Gerulf to come over, speaking in a panicked whisper, as so not to worry anyone else.  
“Gerulf…I swear on my heart that I saw Eena’s hand twitch. The one holding the knife, the left one.”  
Gerulf grimaced, shooting her a glare to silence her.  
“Dagna, please…She is certainly dead. If you check to see if she lives, everyone will notice, and they’ll think you’re beginning to lose your mind as well. You’re frightening Rúna anyhow, so it’s best to just let her be put to rest without anything of a scene.”  
Rúna quaked at her mother’s heels, sky blue eyes wide with fear and brimmed with tears. Dagna knelt, and brushed golden curls out of her daughter’s face.  
“Now now, I doubt her heart still beats Rúna…I just want to make sure. Go with your father, alright?” She murmured, standing back up and turning to her husband.  
“Gerulf, I will be subtle as can be. I am her mother, so they should think nothing of a mother trying to memorize the touch of her eldest before she’s put into the ground.”  
Gerulf frowned, brow furrowing as he considered for a moment reluctantly, then sighed.  
“Fine, mien liebe. Be quick about it.”  
Dagna nodded, reproaching Eena’s corpse. Gerulf lead Rúna away, her eyes still wide with fear and her demeanor shaky. Cautiously, as though Eena might snap back to life, Dagna reached out for her daughter’s hand, the one holding the knife. She placed a thumb on her wrist, feeling for a pulse, the faintest signs of life. Every passing moment, she held her breath, an eternity for each one. Ten seconds passed. Nothing. Twenty. Nothing. Gerulf glared as concerned eyes began to fall on Dagna. Another eight seconds, and she felt it then. A twitch under her thumb that froze the ice in her veins. The moon fully emerged from behind the cloud cover. Dagna finally breathed again.  
“G-Gerulf…please…c-come.”  
Gerulf huffed and attempted to dismiss her, trying to reroute everyone’s attention elsewhere, until Dagna began to shake Eena, whimpering her name.  
“Dagna please, she’s dead. It was a trick of the moonlight, of your exhaustion. You’re acting paranoid, Dagna!”  
Everyone else attending watched on with concern, suspicion. Dagna’s eyes filled with tears as she shook Eena’s limb body more fiercely. Gerulf and his brother Brunric had to pull her away, though she deliriously clung to her daughter’s clammy hand. The knife held tight in her curled up fingers, as Dagna rambled on about Eena’s pulse, her half-dead warmth. Brunric pulled her away from the casket, attempting to hold her hands behind her back.  
Rúna broke into sobs as she watched her mother rabidly fight against her uncle Brunric to get back to her sister’s side. Gerulf went to assist Brunric, while the women from the village took Rúna away, so she wouldn’t have to see anything if things went sour. Rúna didn’t have the strength, mentally nor physically, to fight against them. She desperately wanted to stay by her mother’s side. As much as Rúna feared Eena, she was still her sister, who might still be alive, who could be on the brink of being buried alive.  
As the village women dragged Rúna away by her heels, she caught a moonlit glance at Eena. Her hand wasn’t where her mother had let it drop. It had fallen over the edge of the coffin and now it was back on her chest. The scar on Rúna’s chest, collarbone to between her breasts, ached at the sight. Eena lived.  
Rúna made a weakened attempt to go back to the coffin. Perhaps if she shut it, Eena would not be strong enough to reopen it. Maybe she’d just plain go back to being dead like she should be. The woman leading her away squeezed her tighter with a huff, effectively putting any plans of closing the coffin to rest. She gave in to exhaustion, eyelids giving out on her just as the screaming began.  
It happened so fast. Dagna caught a good swing at Brunric, lacerating his face with a sharpened fingernail. Gerulf tackled her down, praying Rúna wasn’t here to see this, praying he would be forgiven for this act of violence, albeit necessary. Dagna screeched and fought back fiercely, begging him to stop and just check Eena’s pulse between the mad flailing of her psuedo-claws.  
The others from the village simply on-looked with horror, unsure of what to do but just help Brunric with the oozing gash on his cheek. He too looked on, unsure what to do himself.  
The two wrestled, both incredibly strong, on nearly equal levels. Dagna grew more ferocious, taking the ribbon out of her hair to wrap around Gerulf’s throat and pulled it around his throat.  
They rolled over, Gerulf taking her by the collar of her dress, and they rolled down a craggy hill by mistake. Seemingly unscathed, Dagna continued to struggle, pulling the hair ribbon tighter, until Gerulf pinned her to the ground with a sickening crack. He stopped, fear drying the blood in his veins and sucking the strength from his muscles.  
The ribbon once taut around Gerulf’s throat went lax. Dagna’s hands went limp, the ribbon slipping from her fingers like sand. The scent of copper surrounded them, and Gerulf gasped a little when he felt sticky warmth on his fingertips. It felt like the wind had been knocked out of him. Gerulf whispered his wife’s name again, the background sound of the others from the village screaming becoming white noise. He shook her gently, as everything began to blur, and he was pulled away from Dagna by Brunric. His vision faded as he struggled to made a desperate, yet weak attempt to make it back to Dagna’s side.

When she woke up, everything felt oddly numb, and she felt confused. She did what her mother had always told her to do in such scenarios, and began to do a checklist of her senses. She smelled blood. She saw the full moon near the fringe of the sky. She felt weak, and cold, felt something cold in her hand, and something her body temperature in her other hand. Her mouth tasted dry, like she had slept for too long. There was nothing but the white noise of the midnight woods. This isn’t where she remembered being last.  
She tried to remember the last thing that happened to her. Albeit fuzzy, something came back. Her maniacally struggling against someone trying to shove pills down her throat. She remembered fighting like the feral beast she was, rabidly biting, scratching. She remembers begrudgingly agreeing to let them put her in fancy human’s garb.  
Eena slowly sat up, running her thumb over the design in the sheath of the knife. Wolves. Seeing her kin was comforting, until she looked over to the object in her other hand. A rosary. She could feel her hackles raise, hair standing on end, as though it were going to rear up and attack like a serpent of wooden beads. She snarled at it briefly, and flared her nostrils. The fancy human garb was abrasive on her fur. Wolves were not meant to wear clothes. She grumbled this, over and over in her head, once out loud, and promptly began to try tearing it off of herself to little avail.  
She recalled the knife and placed the rosary about her neck, just to free up one of her hands. Something nagged her about the idea of destroying or abandoning it. She shook away the thought, barking softly and cutting herself out of the clothing. It was a messy job, but eventually she was free of it all, save for a band of the white fabric tangled around her ankle.  
Eena climbed out of the coffin and fell onto the damp grass, her legs still half-asleep. Off in the distance, pink fringed the sky, and the moon approached the horizon of trees, threatening to crest below it. She mourned for the temporary loss of the moon, yearning for it to return, for the sky to stay pitch-black. Nonetheless, Eena closed the coffin, and climbed atop it, howling at the sliver of full moon still above the trees, until finally, it slipped away. Off in the distance, she heard voices. She heard Rúna’s voice, Brunric’s too. Eena growled and gnashed her teeth, clumsily loping into the shady brush, just close enough to observe them, far enough so they wouldn’t see her.  
She watched her sister and uncle pick through the shreds of snow white garb, Eena’s nostrils flared. Eena lost nothing in the destroying of her clothes, but they were still hers. She could take Rúna down right now. Her thumb traced over the design on the sheath of the knife, and she slid it out, quietly as she could. Brunric glared in her general direction, quickly forcing Eena to reconsider her options as he began to close distance between them even quicker. Her hackles raised, and she tried to shake the sleep out of her legs, preparing to run. No. He bent over just a few feet away from her. The cross from the rosary had fallen off, and he was picking it up.  
Eena let out a soft sigh of relief, backing a little further from him. She got ready to turn tail and run, but the nagging of her human mind started back up. She needed the cross back. Badly. No, no. She shook her head and convinced herself to stay hidden. She couldn’t take Brunric on.  
Rúna and her uncle lifted open the coffin. She clutched the cross in her hand, hoping her mother had just pulled it off during her flailing. With Brunric’s help, she lifted the coffin open, and then she frantically dug through the coffin, as though Eena had somehow buried her corpse within it’s lining. She started sobbing, and for as much as Brunric tried, he couldn’t console her. Eena would hunt her down relentlessly, like the wolf she was. Is. No more past tense. Eena lives, and Eena will hunt her, to the ends of the Earth.  
Rúna wasn’t wrong. Eena wouldn’t do it now, but she wasn’t about to let her get away. As soon as she was alone, she would strike. She would free the wolf sewn up in Rúna’s human skin. Eena knew there was a wolf trapped in there. Rúna had always been afraid of wolves, raised that way by their mother. Dagna had always been afraid of wolves, like most normal people in Greifswald. Gerulf? Gerulf hunted alongside them occasionally, sharing the spoils, with Eena on one hip, and the family hunting knife on the other. The wolves always fascinated her, and now she knew why. She had to help Rúna see it too.  
Gerulf’s family had always been accused of being werewolves, the way they hunted alongside them like they had a blood pact. They were all spiritually wolves. But Eena and Rúna? They were literal wolves, trapped in a human skin. Eena just was a wolf who has come to terms with her human form. It’s useful, the hands, bipedality. She’d be able to help her fellow wolves this way.  
Now more than ever, Eena felt free. Why didn’t Rúna want Eena to free her? Was she afraid of the pain that being torn from her human skin might cause? Was she afraid because she was truly a wolf? It didn’t matter she supposed. Soon, she would free her. They would be free together.  
Brunric led Rúna home, squeezing her hand in his left, and in his other, a revolver loaded with only silver bullets, safety off. Rúna could be a werewolf too. Brunric didn’t know how Eena came back to life, but it couldn’t have been any way but a pact with Satan himself. He’d definitely come next for Rúna, vulnerable little thing. Whether she was family or not, she could start posing a threat to the town in a heartbeat. She was trained well with a crossbow, and knew how to be stealthy. More than once when he visited, Rúna had accidentally snuck up on him, which hardly anyone or anything could do.  
When she had confirmed they were gone, Eena crawled out of the moonlit flora, back onto the open coffin precariously. The sun was peeking from behind the horizon. Eena gathered up the white tatters of her funeral gown, and swept them into the hole where her coffin was supposed to be. She haphazardly climbed atop her coffin, and tilted her head back to howl long and sweet,  
They heard it, the intensity bringing tears to her eyes, causing the scar Eena left on her chest to sting with alarming levels of pain. The howl sounded like a tortured scream, a ghoulish howl pried from a lycanthrope being held prisoner in a peculiar slip state of human and wolf. Brunric scooped up Rúna in a panic as she began to wail, and he began to charge at breakneck speed to the village. Fear, pure fear, spurred him on. He only looked back to check if there were any wolves following.  
When they finally reached the peak of the hill that loomed over Greifswald, Brunric looked out over the expanse he had crossed. The burning in his lungs began to set in, and he dropped to one knee, sitting Rúna down next to him. They both looked out to the hill above the graveyard, and like a holy silhouette, the sun illuminated Eena. Rúna knew it was her. Her stance, her hair. Without a doubt it was her. Rúna’s heart froze mid-beat as Eena threw her head back and the world went silent, and she let ring another ghastly howl. As the howl subsided, she lowered her head slowly, and met eyes with Rúna for the briefest moment. Eena slowly raised the rosary above her head with purposeful dramatic flair, and tore it apart, beads exploding from it. She tossed the ruined remains to the ground and raised the family knife, the unsheathed blade catching the first rays of the sun. She threw her head back once more as Rúna began to feel faint, and she howled. She howled longer, deeper, even more eerie than the other times somehow. This one was more primal than any of the others to have come before it. Rúna passed out as the howling multiplied and rang in her ears.  
Rúna awoke to sunshine in her eyes, the smell of home filling her nostrils. The bedsheets under her felt clammy with sweat. After her eyes readjusted to the light, she looked over to the window, and saw Brunric staring off into the plaza. He was muttering something, too quietly for her to catch. Wait, her house wasn’t anywhere near the town plaza. She groaned softly as she sat up, the wet cloth on her forehead falling into her lap.  
“Uncle…Where are we? What happened? How long has it been?”  
Brunric jolted a little at her voice turning to see Rúna wide awake.  
“You passed out after Eena congregated the wolves. I took you back to town, to the doctor. You should be fine, but I want you staying here. It’s approaching noon now, but we want you bed-ridden.”  
“Have…you caught Eena?”  
Brunric frowned, and shook his head.  
“No. Her and the wolves have already ravaged the livestock, leaving hardly anything untouched. It’s not yet mid-day on top of it… If she goes unchecked, we’ll all starve this winter. Tonight, me and all the other able-bodied men of Greifswald are going to take to the streets, to the forests, and kill her and any wolves we can.”  
“Uncle, please let me come. I won’t be soothed until I see to it myself that she is dead.”  
Brunric’s expression darkened, and he shook his head.  
“Rúna, kleiner liebling, I cannot let you. Your father is going to be put to a trial, for the manslaughter of your mother. If he is prosecuted, he will die, and you will be my responsibility. In his current absence, you still are my responsibility. Besides all that, you’re Eena’s primary target. Canines of all kinds have been sniffing around here, trying to find you I assume. You’ve seen enough death to scar even the burliest of men. You need rest now, more than ever.”  
Rúna’s eyes brimmed with tears, and she shook her head insistently.  
“Papa taught me how to shoot a crossbow, how to fend for myself. I’ll be fine, especially if I’m with you. Please…”  
Brunric’s tone became more insistent and annoyed, as he snapped at her.  
“No Rúna. I cannot let you, that’s that. I’ll leave you with my crossbow and bolts, so you have some way to defend yourself. If I find even one missing, or used when I come back, I expect answers. Understand?”  
Rúna gave a shaky nod, and let out a sigh, as Brunric left his crossbow on her bedside table, makeshift quiver full of bolts, and then left the room. From down the hall, Rúna could hear the town doctor’s singsong voice as she greeted her uncle. She was promising to keep a vigilant watch over her, though as she said those words, Rúna was already tying the curtain she’d torn down into a rope.  
Eena was covered in dried gore, fellow wolves circling her, and her kills, with caution. Eena knew she was bound to this human pelt for now, but she would be damned if she wasn’t going to make good use of having to suffer in it. She also now wore the fresh skin of the prior alpha wolf that she had dethroned not even a day ago. The white fur with silver and black patches contrasted gorgeously with her dusky gold skin and platinum hair down to her tailbone.  
Together, with her new pack, Eena indulged and engorged herself with her kills. The other wolves were cautious in joining her, but eventually reveled alongside her in victory. When the moon peaked tonight, she would finally attempt to cut herself free of the suffocating human pelt. She would take her rightful place alongside the other wolves, with Rúna joining her. Eena ran her calloused index along the textured sheath of the knife, her stand-in for her claws.  
By the peaking of the sun, they had together eaten 3 lambs, their mother, and the remains of the alpha wolf. The wolves hadn’t eaten this well in generations. Their numbers had weakened as the village’s swelled.  
They graciously accepted Eena as one of them, because of the meat she brought, and because of the ease she had with taking sheep. The lambs didn’t fear humans, and hardly grew much more anxious with the presence of one covered in blood. They were made easy pickings of.  
When the pack was finished feasting they went into the grotto in the center of the woods, curling around the base of the biggest fir. They cuddled up to their new alpha, enjoying their full stomachs and new, wise leader. They all settled in quickly, finally soothed. Together, they slept soundly until moonfall, as though they could sense the fight ahead of them. A battle for certain, a tough one. They knew the night would be long, but perhaps they’d win. Maybe, just maybe, the wilderness might finally be reclaimed.  
It was child’s play, escaping from the doctor’s house. She had the makeshift quiver and crossbow on her back, the bolts all tipped with silver. Without notice, a wave of dread tried to overwhelm her, due to the responsibility, the pressure. She was 12, she was a girl. She wasn’t a hero, or at least, wasn’t supposed to be one. 12 is not a heroes age, and they are never women, unless they assist from the back rows, as shield-maidens and medics. Even then, the glory went to the men.  
By the time she arrived back to her house, the sun was just a bit past it’s peak. She had nearly been discovered several times. Her family name swept the streets, her sister’s name grazing many lips, and everyone knew what had happened to Rúna. When she arrived home, she swiftly lock picked the door with one of the bolts, but made quick work of it. She jumped at the clicking of the lock, at every shadow and everything that moved in her peripheral vision.  
The house was empty, cold, and foreboding. It felt tainted with the ghosts of her innocence, torn from her mercilessly by Eena. The house normally smelled like fresh stew, and firewood, but now the sweet smells were dim, alongside a much stronger, dank scent.  
Rúna made her way to her father’s room, tiptoeing so she didn’t disturb the shadows. The only noise was her heart beating in her ears, and the creaking of the wood under her. When she entered, on the furnace was the family revolver. It hadn’t been in the family as long as the knife, but it was still an heirloom. It was made of fir on the handle and laced with silver. It surprisingly didn’t have any wolves on it, but did have their family name on it. Rúna’s father had told her that it was made specially for hunting werewolves. It was already loaded with all six chambers holding silver bullets.  
“Six shots should be all you need, because only one needs to make it’s mark. If even then you miss all six, perhaps you deserved this death.” Gerulf had joked to Eena, before she grew ill. Eena had always been Gerulf’s favorite, until she grew ill.  
Rúna took Eena’s hunting cloak, long, and green like a forest night. It had deep pockets, enough to hold a sizable amount of herbs, berries, and still manage to carry a weapon in the other. Rúna pocketed the revolver, the cold permeating the cloth, chilling her hip within seconds. She sat down in front of the empty furnace, the late afternoon sun illuminating dust, and began to diligently check the sharpness of every crossbow bolt, and made sure the revolver would certainly fire.  
She later wandered into her mother’s half of the room when she was done. She held her breath, as though this side of the room were sacred, and it wasn’t a sacred place she was allowed. She made her was over to the mirror, where her mother kept all her jewelry, hair ribbons, and aesthetic things of a similar kin. As she stared at herself in the mirror, tears brimmed her eyes, and finally, she accepted them. Tears streamed down her face and she let out loud sobs, the weight of the world finally crushing her.  
Her father had one foot in the grave, and her mother was dead, and her sister who was the only one who should be dead, was the most alive of them all; and to top it all off, she had a vendetta of sorts against her. Rúna was ready to give in, let Eena do as she pleased. She was so exhausted, she wanted to rest so bad. She blubbered until her throat went raw, face went red, and her blue eyes went bleary.  
She found the strength to take her mother’s favorite hair ribbon, one that matched the color of both their eyes, one made of satin. She tied her hair back like her mother always did when her father would take her foraging, then crawled into her parent’s bed, curling the cloak around her tight. Part of her still loved Eena. The Eena that howled and tore at her chest, the one that climbed out of her coffin? That wasn’t Eena. It had to be something else. A demon, the devil’s incarnation. Rúna was sure as sunrise, that whatever controlled Eena, was actually Eena.  
Finally, after what felt like, and could've been, hours, of indulging her self-conscious, she found respite in a fitful sleep. As she fell asleep though, she swore she could hear someone jiggling the lock down the hall. She tried to find the will to go look, to confront whatever was at the door, whether wolf or man, but failed. She fell victim to the temptation of rest instead, until  
the sun started to crest below the western horizon.  
When Eena was finally roused by beams of moonlight, she climbed the tall fir her and the the other wolves had slept under, and looked to the east, to Greifswald. People were gathering with torches, pitchforks, crossbows, lanterns. Anything that could maim or burn, they carried. Eena rallied the wolves with a howl, this one unearthly in it’s sound. It was beyond human, beyond primal, it was something celestial. It rung with shared resolve and the will to live, and the pack joined in, sharing the same sentiment. This only served to rally the town of Greifswald as well, and it caused one lantern to shine atop the graveyard’s hill. Eena’s hackles raised, and she uttered her human name with carnal lust and a snarl.  
“Rúna…”  
She slid down from the tree, and let ring another rallying howl throughout the grotto.  
Off in the distance, Rúna could hear the savage cries of the wolves. She did not cry this time, though her scar still burned, but this time, with passion. In her hands, she rolled the discarded beads of the family rosary, as she rechecked her weapons one last time. In every shady crevice and dark corner, she swore she saw wolves, their eyes glowing mean.  
Off in the distance, she could see the townspeople diverge, one half going to the woods, the other coming in the direction of the graveyard. They could kill as many wolves as they pleased, but Eena’s death belonged to her. She packed up her weapons, keeping the revolver in her hand, ready to fire at a moment’s notice. As she mowed her way through the woods, to the center grotto, she had to shoot at least 3 wolves. She used four out of the six bullets, one being a misfire. After the third wolf, she switched over to her crossbow. Rúna worried about having to fend any larger numbers of wolves with it, but she had to save at least 2 of the bullets for Eena. She already worried that they both might be duds, or misfire, or something else awful. Nothing else would slay a werewolf. She killed two more wolves on her way to the grotto. The moon was approaching it’s peak in the sky, as she finally entered the thicket.  
Nobody else was there but Eena, bloodied and naked as the day she was born, save for a wolf skin, fresh from a living thing. There were no other wolves. They were almost definitely hiding in the shadows. Rúna’s heart stopped, and her mettle threatened to give in on her. It felt like she couldn’t breath as she took aim at Eena. Surprisingly, she spoke, her voice low, gravelly.  
“You’ve finally come to embrace the moon with me, haven’t you?”  
Rúna’s blood boiled, her resolve rushing back to her, the ice in her veins unthawing as Eena climbed to her feet, hunched over with the knife in her hand. She looked like a deranged serial killer. She was.  
“Eena! Mother is dead because of you and Father is next! I won’t let you get away with killing my family you hell beast!” She gnarled, the sound coming from her not of her own will, something primordial. She shot the crossbow with little more hesitation, but missed as Eena leapt to the ground and barked at her. Filled with fury, she threw the crossbow to the ground with a crack, and pulled the pistol out, switching the chamber to the second to last one with a bullet in it.  
“You’re incredibly sick Eena! You’ve done awful things, now let me put you back into your grave proper, so you can go to hell!”  
Without any doubt in her, she fired again, and missed again. In a haze of disbelief, Rúna fumbled with the gun as she prepped it to fire again, giving Eena the proper opportunity to tackle her which, which she uptook without hesitation. She came down on her sister with the knife, and in her panic, Rúna grabbed one of the bolts from the quiver on her back, and wedged it between her sister’s shoulder blades, earning her a grisly shriek. Out of the corner of her eyes, she could see glowing eyes, and further off in the distance, the glow of the villagers’ fire. Eena sneered, knowing her kin would come for her. She put the knife to her younger sister’s throat, but before she could do any harm, Rúna kneed her, and put the gun to the others throat. Eena’s grip on her throat and knife didn’t falter, but it earned her the chance to grab the gun from behind them.  
Eena gave her sister a wry smile, chuckling softly.  
“And if the bullet is a dud?”  
Rúna hadn’t thought of that. If it was, surely she would die. She had made her peace with this, when she walked down the hill, into the woods, into the thicket in it’s moonlit heart. Rúna squeezed her finger around the trigger, not yet firing.  
“It’s in God’s hands now…”  
Just before Rúna pulled the trigger, Eena muttered to her, something almost human in her eyes again.  
“I suppose it is, dear sister.”


	2. Running With The Wolves (Edit+Alternate Ending)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this version, there is implied abuse from the mental hospital Eena was in before the story begins. Also, Eena's fate is different in this one, than in the story's true canon, as you'll notice in Chapter 3.

  Moonlight bathed the graveyard in eerie light over a midnight funeral. Final goodbyes were being muttered to the once rather lively, albeit mentally ill girl. Her normally dusky-gold skin was nearly pale as the moon that watched over the proceedings. It was sobering, to finally see Eena quiet, and unmoving. A grim reminder.

    She wore a light lace gown, pure white. It was all the family could afford. All they wanted to afford. The asylum drained nearly all of the Dolphos family’s savings. Eena’s death, according to them, was painless. She had come down with typhoid fever, and was on the brink of death. They had made it as painless as possible, helped her “pass” as smoothly as they could

         Her mother, Dagna, knew better. She had seen the wounds on her daughter before she dressed her corpse. Claw markings, bruises, dark circles under her eyes. The claw marks, and dark circles were common for Eena, Her way of proving that she was turning into a wolf. She stayed up at night to howl to her “true kin.” She bided her time hunting, traversing the woods for days at a time, once even a month, until Gerulf locked her away. When he did, she would howl, and claw at her arms, comparing them to the scars Gerulf had gotten from wolf hunting, to the sparse scars she had received wrestling with “her own kind.”

     She would never be wed, if she kept acting like such a ferocious beast. People were beginning to worry she was a werewolf. For Eena’s and her younger sister’s safety; and for the peace of mind it would bring the other people of their town, Eena was locked away in the asylum. 

    The clouds began to cover the moon as Dagna dragged her only living child behind her. She hid in the curtails of her mother’s dress, vehemently refusing to behold her deceased sister, as though Eena might wake back up and attack her again.

Dagna had to admit, that Eena still seemed alive in a a peculiar way. The way her right hand clutched the family rosary in one hand, the other clung tight to the family hunting dagger. The sheath of the dagger was covered with worn imprints of running wolves, the handle scratched up from generations of use.

“She’ll need the rosary to convince Gabriel that she’s still a child of god, and the knife in case he doesn’t believe her.” Gerulf had said.

Dagna prayed that God would forgive Eena, so that she wouldn’t need the knife, that God would understand that it was only her illness that made her so foul-tempered and aggressive, that her firstborn would never submit to the devil’s will.

    Dagna gently patted Eena’s cheek. It was lukewarm, most likely from all the other people placing their hands on her cheek. A tear rolled down Dagna’s cheek, causing Rúna to squeeze her mother’s hand. Would Rúna tell her children of Eena? Would she recount the sister that hunted her like a predator, the sister that loped on all fours and ate raw meat like a beast? Would Rúna even remember Eena by the time she was an adult? She was young…

    For the briefest of moments, the clouds opened just enough to cast a few moonbeams down onto the funeral, onto Eena. The knife in her hand glimmered bronze, and in that moment, Dagna swore that Eena’s hand twitched. She gestured for Gerulf to come over, speaking in a panicked whisper, as so not to worry anyone else. 

    “Gerulf…I swear on my heart that I saw Eena’s hand twitch. The one holding the knife, the left one.” 

Gerulf grimaced, shooting her a glare to silence her.

    “Dagna, please…She is certainly dead. If you check to see if she lives, everyone will notice, and they’ll think you’re beginning to lose your mind as well. You’re frightening Rúna anyhow, so it’s best to just let her be put to rest without anything of a scene.” 

Rúna quaked at her mother’s heels, sky blue eyes wide with fear and brimmed with tears. Dagna knelt, and brushed golden curls out of her daughter’s face.

“Now now, I doubt her heart still beats Rúna…I just want to make sure. Go with your father, alright?” She murmured, standing back up and turning to her husband.

“Gerulf, I will be subtle as can be. I am her mother, so they should think nothing of a mother trying to memorize the touch of her eldest before she’s put into the ground.”

Gerulf frowned, brow furrowing as he considered for a moment reluctantly, then sighed.

“Fine, mein liebe. Be quick about it.”

Dagna nodded, reproaching Eena’s corpse. Gerulf lead Rúna away, her eyes still wide with fear and her demeanor shaky. Cautiously, as though Eena might snap back to life, Dagna reached out for her daughter’s hand, the one holding the knife. She placed her fingers on her wrist, feeling for a pulse, the faintest signs of life. Every passing moment, she held her breath, an eternity for each one. Ten seconds passed. Nothing. Twenty. Nothing. Gerulf glared as concerned eyes began to fall on Dagna. Another eight seconds, and she felt it then. A twitch under her thumb that froze the blood in her veins. The moon fully emerged from behind the cloud cover. Dagna finally breathed again.

“G-Gerulf…please…c-come.” 

Gerulf huffed and attempted to dismiss her, trying to reroute everyone’s attention elsewhere, until Dagna began to shake Eena, whimpering her name.

“Dagna please, she’s dead. It was a trick of the moonlight, of your exhaustion. You’re acting paranoid, Dagna!”

    Everyone else attending watched on with concern, suspicion. Dagna’s eyes filled with tears as she shook Eena’s limb body more fiercely. Gerulf and his brother Brunric had to pull her away, though she deliriously clung to her daughter’s clammy hand. The knife held tight in her curled up fingers, as Dagna rambled on about Eena’s pulse, her half-dead warmth. Brunric pulled her away from the casket, attempting to hold her hands behind her back.

    Rúna broke into sobs as she watched her mother rabidly fight against her uncle Brunric to get back to her sister’s side. Gerulf went to assist Brunric, while the women from the village took Rúna away, so she wouldn’t have to see anything if things went sour. Rúna didn’t have the strength, mentally nor physically, to fight against them. She desperately wanted to stay by her mother’s side. As much as Rúna feared Eena, she was still her sister, who might still be alive, who could be on the brink of being buried alive, truly a terrifying fate.

    As the village women dragged Rúna away by her heels, she caught a moonlit glance at Eena. Her hand wasn’t where her mother had let it drop. It had fallen over the edge of the coffin and now it was back on her chest. The scar on Rúna’s chest, collarbone to between her breasts, ached at the sight. Eena lived. 

    Rúna made a feeble attempt to go back to the coffin, escape the grasp of the midwives. Perhaps if she shut it, Eena would not be strong enough to reopen it. Maybe she’d just plain go back to being dead like she should be. The woman leading her away squeezed her tighter with a huff, effectively putting any plans of closing the coffin to rest. One scooped her up in her arms, and she gave in to exhaustion, sleep devouring her just as the screaming began.

 

    When she woke up, everything felt oddly numb, and she felt confused. She did what her mother had always told her to do in such scenarios, and began to do a checklist of her senses. She smelled blood. She saw the full moon near the fringe of the sky. She felt weak, and cold, felt something cold in her hand, and something her body temperature in her other hand. Her mouth tasted dry, like she had slept for too long. There was nothing but the white noise of the midnight woods. This isn’t where she remembered being last.

    She tried to remember the last thing that happened to her. Albeit fuzzy, something came back. Her maniacally struggling against someone trying to shove pills down her throat. She remembered fighting like the feral beast she was, rabidly biting, scratching. She remembered begrudgingly agreeing to let them put her in fancy human’s garb.

    Eena slowly sat up, running her thumb over the design in the sheath of the knife. Wolves. Seeing her kin was comforting, until she looked over to the object in her other hand. A rosary. She could feel her hackles raise, hair standing on end, as though the rosary was going to rear up and attack like a serpent of wooden beads. She snarled at it briefly, and flared her nostrils, warning it to keep in line. 

    The fancy human garb was abrasive on her fur. Wolves were not meant to wear clothes. She grumbled this, over and over in her head, once out loud, though her human words now came out oddly gargled, like wet stones in the back of her throat. She hummed in consideration, but considered this nothing lost, and began clawing at the garb to tear herself free of it, to little avail.

    She recalled the knife and placed the rosary about her neck, just to free up one of her hands. Something nagged her about the idea of destroying or abandoning it. It seemed wrong. She shook away the thought, barking softly and cutting herself out of the clothing. It was a messy job, but eventually she was free of it all.

    Eena climbed out of the coffin and fell onto the damp grass, her legs still numb, as though she had been asleep for far too long. She let herself drop to her knees, and she ran her fingers through the grass. It had been so long…Off in the distance, pink fringed the sky, and the moon approached the horizon of trees, threatening to crest below it. She mourned for the temporary loss of the moon, yearning for it to return, for the sky to stay pitch-black. Nonetheless, Eena closed the coffin hesitantly, and climbed atop it, howling at the sliver of full moon still above the trees, until it finally slipped away. Off in the distance, she heard voices. She heard Rúna’s voice, Brunric’s too. The human tongue was piercing, and rough, like a hail of sharpened stones. Eena growled and gnashed her teeth, clumsily loping into the shady brush, just close enough to observe them, far enough so they wouldn’t see her.

    She watched her sister and uncle pick through the shreds of snow white garb, and Eena flared her nostrils. She loved Rúna, with all her heart, but it made her blood boil, her hair prickle, to see her being used like this, like a scent-hound. Rúna could be so much more, she could be unbound, from the expectations of womanhood, from humanity’s standards itself. If only Rúna would let herself be saved. She’d obviously grown attached to her collar and chains, to the humans that jerked on the reins. Soon, Rúna would be freed of this humanity. She would be free, alongside her. Soon though, they would prowl side by side…

    Eena lost nothing in the destroying of her clothes, but they were still hers. Her clothes. She could take Rúna down right now, whisk her away into the wilderness where she belonged. Her thumb traced over the design on the sheath of the knife, and she slid it out, quietly as she could. Brunric glared in her general direction, quickly forcing Eena to reconsider her options as he began to close distance between them even quicker. Her hackles raised, and she tried to shake the sleep out of her legs, preparing to run. No. He bent over just a few feet away from her. The cross from the rosary had fallen off, and he was picking it up.

    Eena let out a soft sigh of relief, backing a little further from him. She got ready to turn tail and run, but the nagging of her human mind started back up. She needed the cross back. Badly. Nein…nein. She shook her head and convinced herself to stay hidden. She couldn’t defeat Brunric, even by means of her wits. Predatory instinct and primal determination would only take her so far.

        Rúna and her uncle lifted open the coffin. She clutched the cross in her hand, hoping her mother had just pulled it off during her flailing. With Brunric’s help, she lifted the coffin open, and then she frantically dug through the coffin, as though Eena’s corpse had melted into the velvet. She started sobbing, and for as much as Brunric tried, he couldn’t console her. Eena would hunt her down relentlessly, like the wolf she was. Is. No more past tense. Eena lives, and Eena will hunt her, to the ends of the Earth.

    Rúna wasn’t wrong. Eena wouldn’t do it now, but she wasn’t about to let her get away. As soon as she was alone, she would strike. She would free the wolf sewn up in Rúna’s human skin. Eena knew there was a wolf trapped in there. Rúna had always been afraid of wolves, raised that way by their mother. Dagna had always been afraid of wolves, like most normal people in Greifswald. Gerulf? Gerulf hunted alongside them occasionally, sharing the spoils, with Eena on one hip, and the family hunting knife on the other. The wolves always fascinated her, and now she knew why. She had to help Rúna see it too.

    Gerulf’s family had always been accused of being werewolves, the way they hunted alongside them like they had a blood pact. They were wolves though, in spirit. But Eena and Rúna? They were literal wolves, trapped in a human skin. Eena just was a wolf who had come to terms with her human form. It’s useful, the hands, bipedality. She’d be able to help her fellow wolves this way.

    Now more than ever, Eena felt free. Why didn’t Rúna want Eena to free her? Was she afraid of the pain that being torn from her human skin might cause? Was she afraid of the truth, being truly a wolf? It didn’t matter she supposed. Soon, she would free her. They would be free together. 

    Brunric led Rúna home, squeezing her hand in his left, and in his other, a revolver loaded with only silver bullets, safety off. Rúna could be a werewolf too. Brunric didn’t know how Eena came back to life, but it couldn’t have been any way but a pact with Satan himself. He’d definitely come next for Rúna, vulnerable little thing. Whether she was family or not, she could start posing a threat to the town in a heartbeat. She was trained well with a crossbow, and knew how to be stealthy. More than once when he visited, Rúna had accidentally snuck up on him, which hardly anyone or anything could do.

    When she had confirmed they were gone, Eena crawled out of the moonlit flora, back onto the open coffin precariously. The sun was peeking from behind the horizon. Eena gathered up the white tatters of her funeral gown, and swept them into the hole where her coffin was supposed to be. She haphazardly climbed atop her coffin, and tilted her head back to howl long and sweet, a rallying cry for her people.

    They heard it, the intensity bringing tears to her eyes, causing the scar Eena left on her chest to sting with alarming levels of pain.  The howl sounded like a tortured scream, a ghoulish howl pried from a lycanthrope being held prisoner in a peculiar slip state of human and wolf. Brunric scooped up Rúna in a panic as she began to wail, and he began to charge at breakneck speed to the village. Fear, pure fear, spurred him on. He only looked back to check if there were any wolves following.

    When they finally reached the peak of the hill that loomed over Greifswald, Brunric looked out over the expanse he had crossed. The burning in his lungs began to set in, and he dropped to one knee, sitting Rúna down next to him. They both looked out to the hill above the graveyard, and like a holy silhouette, the sun illuminated Eena. Rúna knew it was her. Her stance, her hair. Without a doubt it was her. She held the all too familiar pose with her arms spread like an angel, staring out over her territory. 

    Reddish blond hair caught newborn sunbeams, making her seem ablaze, an angel of fury.  Rúna’s heart froze mid-beat as Eena threw her head back and the world went silent just for her, and she let ring another ghastly howl. As the howl subsided, she lowered her head slowly, and met eyes with Rúna for the briefest moment. Eena slowly raised the rosary above her head with purposeful dramatic flair, and tore it apart, beads exploding from it. She tossed the ruined remains to the ground and raised the family knife, the unsheathed blade catching the dawn’s glimmer. She lowered her head to survey the land, the people, her sister. She caught Runa’s eyes, something wise, yet primal glistening in Eena’s, like a spirit of nature. She threw her head back once more as Rúna began to feel faint, and she howled. She howled longer, deeper, even more eerie than the other times somehow. This one was more primal than any of the others to have come before it. Rúna passed out as the howling multiplied and rang in her ears.

    Rúna awoke to sunshine in her eyes, the smell of home filling her nostrils. The bedsheets under her felt clammy with sweat. After her eyes readjusted to the light, she looked over to the window, and saw Brunric staring off into the plaza. He was muttering something, too quietly for her to catch. Wait, her house wasn’t anywhere near the town plaza. She groaned softly as she sat up, the wet cloth on her forehead falling into her lap.

    “Uncle…Where are we? What happened? How long has it been?”

    Brunric jolted a little at her voice turning to see Rúna wide awake.

    “You passed out after Eena congregated the wolves. I took you back to town, to the doctor. You should be fine, but I want you staying here. It’s approaching noon now, but we want you bed-ridden.”

    “Have…you caught Eena?”

    Brunric frowned, and shook his head.

    “No. Her and the wolves have already ravaged the livestock, leaving hardly anything untouched. It’s not yet mid-day on top of it… If she goes unchecked, we’ll all starve this winter.  Tonight, me and all the other able-bodied men of Greifswald are going to take to the streets, to the forests, and kill her and any wolves we can.”

    “Uncle, please let me come. I won’t be soothed until I see to it myself that she is dead.”

Brunric’s expression darkened, and he shook his head.

    “Rúna, kleiner liebling, I cannot let you. Your father is going to be put to a trial, for the manslaughter of your mother. If he is prosecuted, he will die, and you will be my responsibility. In his current absence, you still are my responsibility. Besides all that, you’re Eena’s primary target. You’ve seen enough death to scar even the most stalwart of men. You need rest now, more than ever.”

    Rúna’s eyes brimmed with tears, and she shook her head insistently.

    “Papa taught me how to shoot a crossbow, how to fend for myself. I’ll be fine, especially if I’m with you. Please…”

Brunric’s tone became more insistent and annoyed, as he snapped at her.

    “No Rúna. I cannot let you, that’s that. I’ll leave you with my crossbow and bolts, so you have some way to defend yourself. If I find even one missing, or used when I come back, I expect answers. Understand?”

    Rúna gave a shaky nod, and let out a sigh, as Brunric left his crossbow on her bedside table, makeshift quiver full of bolts, and then left the room. From down the hall, Rúna could hear the town doctor’s singsong voice as she greeted her uncle. She was promising to keep a vigilant watch over her, though as she said those words, Rúna was already tying the curtain she’d torn down into a rope.

    Eena was covered in dried gore, fellow wolves circling her, and her kills, with caution. Eena knew she was bound to this human pelt for now, for this life, but she would be damned if she wasn’t going to make good use of having to suffer in it. She  now wore the fresh skin of the prior alpha wolf that she had dethroned hardly a handful of hours prior. The white fur with silver and black patches contrasted gorgeously with her dusky gold skin and gentle red hair down to her tailbone.

    Together, with her new pack, Eena indulged and engorged herself with her kills. The other wolves were cautious in joining her, but eventually reveled alongside her in victory. When the moon peaked tonight, she would finally attempt to cut herself free, no humans to hunt her down and drag her back into chains. She would take her rightful place alongside the other wolves, with Rúna joining her. Eena ran her calloused index along the textured sheath of the knife, her stand-in for her claws.

    By the peaking of the sun, they had together eaten 3 lambs, their mother, and the remains of the alpha wolf. The wolves hadn’t eaten this well in generations. Their numbers had weakened as the village’s swelled.

    They graciously accepted Eena as one of them, because of the meat she brought, and because of the ease she had with taking sheep. The lambs didn’t fear humans, and hardly grew much more anxious with the presence of one covered in blood.  They were made easy pickings of. 

    When the pack was finished feasting they went into the grove in the center of the woods, curling around the base of the biggest fir. They cuddled up to their new alpha, enjoying their full stomachs and new, wise leader. They all settled in quickly, finally soothed. Together, they slept soundly until moonfall, as though they could sense the fight ahead of them. A battle for certain, a tough one. They knew the night would be long, but perhaps they’d win. Maybe, just maybe, the wilderness might finally be reclaimed.

    It was child’s play, escaping from the doctor’s house. She had the makeshift quiver and crossbow on her back, the bolts all tipped with silver. Without notice, a wave of dread tried to overwhelm her, due to the responsibility, the pressure. She was 12, she was a girl. She wasn’t a hero, or at least, wasn’t supposed to be one. 12 was not a heroes age, and they were never women, unless they assisted from the back rows, as shield-maidens and medics. Even then, the glory went to the men.

    By the time she arrived back to her house, the sun was just a bit past it’s peak. She had nearly been discovered several times. Her family name swept the streets, her sister’s name grazing many lips, and everyone knew what had happened to Rúna. When she arrived home, she swiftly lock picked the door with one of the bolts, making quick work of it. She jumped at the clicking of the lock, at every shadow and everything that moved in her peripheral vision.

    The house was empty, cold, and foreboding. It felt tainted with the ghosts of her innocence, torn from her mercilessly by Eena. The house normally smelled like fresh stew, and firewood, but now the sweet, meaty smells were dim, alongside a much stronger, dank scent. 

    Rúna made her way to her father’s room, tiptoeing so she didn’t disturb the shadows. The only noise was her heart beating in her ears, and the creaking of the wood under her. When she entered, on the furnace was the family revolver.  It hadn’t been in the family as long as the knife, but it was still an heirloom. It was made of fir on the handle and laced with silver. It surprisingly didn’t have any wolves on it, but did have their family name on it. Rúna’s father had told her that it was made specially for hunting werewolves. It was already loaded with all six chambers holding silver bullets.

    “Six shots should be all you need, because only one needs to make it’s mark. If even then you miss all six, perhaps you deserved this death.” Gerulf had joked to Eena, before she grew ill. Eena had always been Gerulf’s favorite, until she grew ill.

    Rúna took Eena’s hunting cloak, long, and green like a forest night. It had deep pockets, enough to hold a sizable amount of herbs, berries, and still manage to carry a weapon in the other. Rúna pocketed the revolver, the cold permeating the cloth, chilling her hip within seconds. She sat down in front of the empty furnace, the late afternoon sun illuminating dust, and began to diligently check the sharpness of every crossbow bolt, and made sure the revolver would certainly fire.

    She later wandered into her mother’s half of the room when she was done. She held her breath, as though this side of the room were sacred, and it wasn’t a place she was allowed. She made her was over to the mirror, where her mother kept all her jewelry, hair ribbons, and aesthetic things of a similar kin. As she stared at herself in the mirror, tears brimmed her eyes, and finally, she accepted them. Tears streamed down her face and she let out loud sobs, the weight of the world finally crushing her. 

    Her father had one foot in the grave, and her mother was dead, and her sister who was the only one who should be dead, was the most alive of them all; and to top it all off, she had a vendetta of sorts against her.  Rúna was ready to give in, let Eena do as she pleased. She was so exhausted, she wanted to rest so badly. She blubbered until her throat went raw, face went red, and her blue eyes went bleary. 

    She found the strength to take her mother’s favorite hair ribbon, one that matched the color of both their eyes, one made of satin. She tied her hair back like her mother always did when her father would take her foraging, then crawled into her parent’s bed, curling the cloak around her tight. Part of her still loved Eena. The Eena that howled and tore at her chest, the one that climbed out of her coffin? That wasn’t Eena. It had to be something else. A demon, the devil’s incarnation. Rúna was sure as sunrise, that whatever controlled Eena, wasn't actually Eena.

    Finally, after what felt like, and could've been, hours, of indulging her subconscious, she found respite in a fitful sleep. She fell victim to the temptation of rest instead, until 

the sun started to crest below the western horizon.

    When Eena was finally roused by beams of moonlight, she climbed the tall fir her and the the other wolves had slept under, and looked to the east, to Greifswald. People were gathering with torches, pitchforks, crossbows, lanterns. Anything that could maim or burn, they carried. Eena rallied the wolves with a howl, this one unearthly in its sound just as all the others had It was beyond human, beyond primal, it was something celestial. It rung with shared resolve, the will to live, and the pack joined in, sharing the same sentiment. This only served to rally the town of Greifswald as well, and it caused one lantern to shine atop the graveyard’s hill. Eena’s hackles raised, and she uttered her human name with carnal lust and a snarl, the rumbling of wet stones.

    “Rúna…”

She slid down from the tree, and let ring another rallying howl throughout the grotto.

    Off in the distance, Rúna could hear the savage cries of the wolves. She did not break this time, and though her scar still burned, it burned with passion. In her hands, she rolled the discarded beads of the family rosary, as she rechecked her weapons one last time. In every shady crevice and dark corner, she swore she saw wolves, their eyes glowing mean. 

    Off in the distance, she could see the townspeople diverge, one half going to the woods, the other coming in the direction of the graveyard. They could kill as many wolves as they pleased, but Eena’s death belonged to her. She packed up her weapons, keeping the revolver in her hand, ready to fire at a moment’s notice. The first wolf she encountered, it seemed unlike any wolf she had seen before, it was unusual, foaming at the mouth and unusually brave. It did not fall after the first bullet, but the gun jammed and wouldn’t fire the second. She threw the revolver in the heated moment of adrenaline, breaking it. 

    Nobody else was there but Eena, bloodied and naked as the day she was born, save for a wolf skin, fresh from a carcass. However…something seemed off. She was thin, almost like her muscles had melted off of her, and her skin was remarkably pale. She…was a husk, riddled with Smallpox. This was not Eena. This was a demented shell of what her sister had been. A bodysnatcher, a doppelgänger, a skinshifter. 

    The husk gave Rúna a weak smile, gesturing for her to come closer, to sit beside her in the pool of bloody mud. Hesitantly, she joined her, albeit crouching so that no more than the fringes of the cloak were dirtied. Rúna wasn’t sure whether to look at her or not, the rash of pustules from the Smallpox eclipsing what was left of untainted skin, mixed with awful bruises and wicked scars that she didn’t remember having been there. The husk of Eena gave her a gory-toothed grin as Rúna frisked her wounds. She flared her nostrils loudly to regain Rúna’s attention.

    “You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Rúna.”

    Her voice was incredibly raspy, almost clumsy, like rocks tumbling down a hill. Rúna gulped loudly. She was in the presence of a disease-riddled monster, gone mad with the agony of it all. Before Eena went to the Asylum, she hadn’t been this delirious, not by a long shot. It was only now, Rúna realized what damage they had done, to her, her family.

    “I have. Eena, you’re really sick. You…you need to rest. Please.”


End file.
